Castle sets first appeared in 1978, but 1984 brought a new line with two factions. The Lion Knights and Black Falcon Knights competed for the next four years as the two main castle factions. Check out the 1984 sets here:
http://www.classic-castle.com/sets/oop1984.html

To me, Legoland Castle was always the real Old Castle, as I didn't learn about the Yellow Castle era until we got the Internet at home.

My first Castle set was a Legoland Castle: 6081 King's Mountain Fortress. My parents got it in 1993, just after we moved. I had been hoping for 6086, but at the time I was 6, and any Castle was awesome. For the longest time, I only had Crusaders, and when I did get more sets, it was past the time when BFs were available.

Black Knights and Royal Knights have long since displaced the Crusaders as the dominant powers of goodness, but the Crusaders remained the oldest and noblest of my Castle kingdoms (as well as the homeland of its greatest conquerer). I was ecstatic when TLC rereleased the Guarded Inn and the BFF, and I immediately bought both.

My only regret is that I broke one of my lion knight's visors, and that I lost the pieces to the door on the KMF's tower. And that I took so long to give the knight with a barding a crown. And a cooler cape.

Has it been 20 years? I must have been in it from the start. I first started playing with Lego at age 5 and am 25 now. Hadn't realized that before. Its been a great run, up to a few years ago at least (but lets not get into that again). Here's hoping for another 20 more good years.

That means I was 9 when it started, no wonder castle is my theme of choice. I had almost all the sets when they were released and sometimes multiples. A few of the rare sets escaped me as northern Alberta is not known for its large retail outlets. Especially way back in '84. A great era to celebrate. And one I wish we could return to, at least in castle sets anyway. Not so much the music and the fashions.

Will

After a long absence, I have returned. I can't wait to start building again.

Happy birthday! LEGOLAND Castle, in my opinion, was the golden years of LEGO. Sadly, my first memory of an actual LEGOLAND Castle set has yet to be made. So, I'll just say that my first memory is seeing the on Ebay.

My seventh birthday was in 1984, and it was the first year that I was old enough to own Legoland sets. My grandma was kind enough to get me a Legoland value pack for my birthday. I had been playing with basic lego bricks since I was 3 or so, but this was different.

I was completely blown away. I had never seen a minifig before, nor had I ever seen most of the small detail pieces like antenna, steering wheels, radar dishes, 1x1 trans cylinders, rocket booster parts, etc.

I memorized how to build all 3 sets and then threw out the instructions because I didn't need them anymore. I often looked at the 1984 Legoland flyer/pamphlet that came with each. All of the other stuff looked awesome too, but the flyer eventually got ripped accidentally and I threw it out.

I spent the next two years building houses out of basic bricks whenever I played with my Lego because I had no other Legoland sets and my friends and family did not have any so mine seemed out of place.

In the summer of 1986, a series of events began to unfold that led to my cousin, my brother, and myself buying Lego at every chance for the next few years. By this time, the 1984 sets were just distant dreams seen in the flyers, and I could not find any of them locally. Even worse, my mother said, "I don't want you getting any of those castle sets because they have sharp objects in them".

I was mostly a collector of town and small space sets in 1986-1987. In 1988, I started to collect castle and by 1990 I was almost exclusively collecting castle, but I never had enough money for the larger sets.

By then I had broken the max age of 12 on Legoland sets. My cousin and brother had stopped playing/collecting in 1989 when Lego stopped making Blacktron. In 1992, my only Lego playing and collecting friend at school moved away. The darkness finally consumed me.

Around that time, Legoland was replaced with SYSTEM. I have never understood that change, and I doubt that I ever will. For me, there was never a more perfect time and place than walking down the Lego aisle. To my left and to my right, there was nothing but Lego floor to ceiling from one end of the aisle to the other. Boxes clearly marked Basic or Technic, and of course those yellow boxes which displayed the Legoland banner and filled me with awe and wonder time and again . From 1986 - 1990, that was the most perfect place in the world. That aisle had a truly magical feeling back in the days of Legoland, and there is no place I would rather revisit if I could.

That aisle now contains Lego on half of one side, 1/4 of what there used to be. The set designs are not inspiring, and everything is broken up into a bunch of mini themes that only stick around for a year. It seems that TLG is unsuccessful with any minifig based product line that isn't licensed (and with some that are). The Lego aisle is constantly shrinking and set quality has never been close to the way it was in the 80s. I fear that set quality will stay in the pit and the shelf space will continue to shrink, and all I can do is mourn the loss of Legoland.

That fictional land filled with yellow smiling people shaped who I am today much more than any cartoons, video games, sports, or action figures ever could.

Last edited by rogue27 on Sat May 08, 2004 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I started with Lego Castle only in 1986 Christmas at 7 years old. But I started with 6080. It was a really great moment in my life, and I'll remember it for long again. Since then, I didn't want other things than Lego Castle as a gift. After this I got 6066. Another great set. And 6085... That was the golden years.

I still remember all the yellow boxes in shops. That was great to see. Now I think I should have buy more castle sets with my money, and maybe least town and space set.

1984 has been the real start for Legoland Castle System.
The yellow castle and it's few additions just had not been a complete system, they rather acted as test ballon. And I was too young to appreciate the beauty of these sets then. Well, that's not these sets' fault, though :-)

When I opened the LEGO catalogue in 1984 I wasn't able to shut it ever again. My eyes just were glued to the pages with the new grey (!!) castle stuff! Grey! Never owned grey before besides some road plates... And horses! Archers! cart wheels! Two castles! A blacksmith! A catapult! A siege tower! Available from April. Argh! My birthday is in March! :-(

So I had to wait until the advent season the same year, because I got some sets in the holiday calendar, day by day some parts of 6022 and 6040. For Christmas I got 6073, and I fell in love with the Black Falcons, the Eagle knights.

Being the first Castle line I ever had for me these early days still mark the peak level of Castle itself. Maybe the sets from 1986 and 1987 were even more beautiful (the Guarded Inn, the Armour shop, the Battering Ram), however, these sets were additions to an already great system.

Playing with Lego as a kid are some of the best memories I have. I would sit and build castles, siege equipment, houses, ships, etc. for hours. The days would fly by. Summer was especially great, because I could spend weeks building a kingdom.

I'm sure these memories contribute to the fact I still "play" with Lego Castle as an "adult". (I use the word loosely in my case). Sifting through bricks brings back a kind of child like joy. Also, I can now afford massive quantities of bricks that I couldn't get my hands on as a kid. I can finally build castles to scale!

Yeah! 20 years of Legoland-Castle! So... When I was born Legoland-Castle was already there for 5 years long and when I got my first castle set there was Legoland-castle for 11 years.
I'm so lucky that I can buy stuff from the internet
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Another thing: this is My 10th post

20 Years already! It can't be, that makes me 30......ish. Congrats to Classic Castle for still being the ideal that today's castle sets aspire to be. This is a great hobby with alot of great people in it. I am grateful for this site to be able to flash back to a time when there was no mortgage payment, no school loans and all my extra cash went towards toys! Again, this milestone is a congrats to all of the people who love this hobby and here's to 20 more. HAPPY BIRTHDAY

I was born in Bangladesh in 1978 but lived in USA between 1983 and 1986. During this time I owned a few small/medium lego sets, probably 6378 and a few others, but no castle. Besides lego was not my primary interest at the time...

Back in Bangladesh, some time in the late eighties, my friend's father, a businessman who made trips to Hong Kong and other places, bought him a 6062 (lego sets are not available in Bangldesh). We had endless fun with that one set. Back in those days I used to drool over the catalog which came with that set, as well as a Sears catalog which was among a big pile of magazines left to us by some American friends living in Bangladesh when they left to go back to the states. The sets I dreamed of having the most were 6085, the forestmen sets, and space sets like 6990. Everything was so perfect about lego back then - not just the set design, but also the way they were presented in the boxes and beautiful catalogs that came with them. You could tell that the folks at TLC took pride in their craftsmanship back in those days.

I returned to USA in 1993 but did not rediscover lego until early last year (in the interim I had many other diverse interests to occupy my time, and even if I had rediscovered lego earlier, I would not have had the money to spend on them until around 2000). With my rediscovery of lego last year, I finally got to own a set in my favorite theme...castle!
The internet, of course, is what made all this possible...it's great to know that there are so many people out there sharing your interest, and doing such amazing things with their hobby. I don't often make posts of my own, but I follow the forums (fora?) regularly. Currently I am a collector more than a MOCer...lack of extra pieces and lack of time due to my studies keeps me from the latter.

As for lego today, I think it is a pale shade of line it used to be, both in terms of the product design and also of product presentation. I am glad they are making an effort to produce legends and MOCs, my compliments to them for that. However, like many people here, I wish they would make a full fledged return to the glory days of legoland...it would be so easy for them if they wanted to.